


And the Heart Is Gone

by theprincessandtheking



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Heartbreaking, seriously if you're looking for a happy ending look elsewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 20:20:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10498749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprincessandtheking/pseuds/theprincessandtheking
Summary: She isn’t surprised when he takes a seat beside her, his eyes fixed on the bar top. From the corner of her eye she sees the three long scratch marks just above his cheekbone, still fresh and colored an angry red. She rubs her nails across the pad of her thumb, remembering how they felt against Murphy's skin and idly pondering what it would feel like to dig them even deeper.“Clarke—"“I meant what I said,” she says flatly. “It should have been you.”He’s silent as he grabs a glass of his own and begins to pour.“I know.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Major character death. If you're looking for a happy ending, you should look elsewhere. You've been warned.

The sun has just broken over the tree line when she hears Raven bark her name from across the med bay.

“They’re back,” she calls, and those words are all it takes for Clarke to drop the gauze she is rolling and bolt toward the exit.

 

_“It’s only going to be a couple of days,” he told her gruffly as he shoved a spare shirt into his pack. “It’s just a routine scout trip to make sure Polis is keeping up their end of the alliance.”_

_“It’s not that simple and you know it,” she argued. “Trikru and Azgeda are at war, Bellamy. Those woods are a battlefield.”_

_He huffed a sigh and turned to her with tired eyes._

_“And their fight’s with each other, not with Skaikru. It’s a day’s trek to Polis, then a day negotiating with Roan and the ambassadors, and then a day back.”_

_She folded her arms over her chest and raised her chin stubbornly._

_“I’m coming with you.”_

_“Like hell you are,” he dismissed, stepping toward her and meeting her challenging stare with one of his own. “You’re needed here in medical, and you know it.”_

_She chewed the inside of her cheek as she tried to come up with a response, knowing with a sinking feeling that she wouldn’t find one._

_“Murphy’s going in your place to cover my back,” he assured her. He brought a hand to rest just below her shoulder, his thumb grazing soothingly across the cotton of her shirt. “We won’t be short-handed.”_

_“Murphy isn’t me.”_

_He let out a soft chuckle._

_“No, he certainly isn’t.”_

_His tone made her stomach flutter in ways that made her restless, and she found her gaze roaming across his face. The warmth of his brown eyes spread all the way to her chest, and she noted with a smile that the sun had darkened the freckles that sprawled across his skin. His small smile tugged his lips upward, making lines near the corners of his mouth that tugged at her heart._

_“Come home safe, okay?” she whispered. “You’re needed here, too.”_

_His dark lashes fluttered, as though he were surprised by her words. He swallowed hard, smile widening slightly as he gave her a small nod._

_And then he was gone._

 

She feels breathless by the time she reaches the gates, her hands wringing together as she watches the small sea of her people flood through the gates, scanning face after face.

One is missing.

She spots Murphy as he passes through the gate, shoulders weary and eyes sullen, and she feels her stomach clench.

“Murphy!” she shouts. He meets her gaze blankly. “Where’s Bellamy?”

His mouth gapes as he searches for words. It’s then that she sees the bruises on his chin and the scrape on his neck. It’s then that she notices the way tear tracks cover the cheeks of nearly everyone in the group, the way that they look at her as though she’s a wounded animal that should be put out of her misery.

And she knows before anyone says a word.

“They ambushed us,” Murphy says, and though his voice is nothing more than a hoarse whisper, it is all she can hear over the blood that rushes in her ears. “Azgeda came out of nowhere. He ordered everyone to take cover while he tried to take out the bows in trees, and he somehow managed to get us out of there to safety. But then he was on the ground and he had lost so much blood, and we hadn’t even known he was hit. And then he was just—he was gone.”

Clarke searches for breath, tries to remember how to pull in air, tries to think of anything but what she’s hearing because it isn’t—it _can’t_ be true.

“It happened so fast,” he rasps. “There was nothing anyone could—"

She lunges.

“You son of a bitch!” she screams, and the feel of her nails tearing through skin fuels the uproar in the pit of her stomach. She thrashes wildly as she shrieks incoherent curses, throwing fist after fist, scratch after scratch, and Murphy doesn’t try to fend off a single one. “You were supposed to protect him!”

She feels hands around her arms, around her waist, around her shoulders, hands that drag her backwards as her toes fight to find a hold on the graveled earth beneath them.

“It should have been _you_!”

Her voice is so shrill she barely recognizes it as her own. And suddenly she is on her knees and sharp rocks press into her shins and the noise that erupts from her throat is nothing short of inhuman, tearing through her and breaking roughly from her throat. And somewhere along the line her cries become a rhythmic chant of, _no no no no_ , because Bellamy Blake—kind, cocky, selfless Bellamy Blake—cannot be dead. Because surely a world cannot exist without him in it.

The apologies that stream from the mouths of those around her, from Murphy, fall on deaf ears as she fists her hands in the dirt, feeling the grit of it against her skin as it mixes with the blood beneath her nails. Her lungs fight to suck in breath after deep breath, yet she finds no respite from the suffocating tightness that is locked around her ribs. In the back of her mind, the medical training takes over, tells her she is hyperventilating, tells her this is a panic attack and that she needs to calm herself.

But for the first time since she set foot on Earth, Clarke’s logic means nothing, does nothing to combat the despair that seeps through her skin straight to her bones. Each sob sends a new jolt of pain through her heart, tearing further into the jagged edges of the hole that was once filled by freckles and brown eyes and rare smiles.

She doesn’t know how she finds herself on her feet, but one moment she is on her knees and the next she is sprinting out of the gates and across the field and into the trees as fast as her legs can carry her. She runs until her muscles burn as much as the tears in her eyes, until her lungs finally explode with her sobs. She leans against the rough bark of a tree and lets her limbs give out beneath her, sliding down into the soft earth that coats her pant with the morning’s dew.

And then she cries.

Clarke cries harder than she ever has in her life. She cries with sobs that shake her whole body until her shoulders tremble with exertion. She cries until she retches and throws up anything and everything in her stomach. She cries until her lungs ache and shudder to pull in the air around her and make her dizzy with their efforts.

And when she runs out of tears, she screams.

She doesn’t care that the woods she sits in are a warzone—no, a ‘battlefield,’ she had told him—and part of her prays that Azgeda will come and end it now. Any death would surely be less painful than this. She lets her screams echo through the branches of the trees above her without reservation.

Eventually her voice gives out, and Clarke lets her back fall to the earth, hearing her shoulders crunch against the leaves that still litter the ground from the previous autumn. And before she can stop them, memories succumb her.

She thinks about Octavia, and how she’s going to tell her that her brother died on her watch.

She thinks about the hundred, about how they will cope with this loss—this monumental hole this world has created in their existence.

She thinks that she should have been there, should have been the one covering his back, because _of course_ he’d offer himself up to save everyone else. She thinks through the ‘ _what if_ ’s, and the ‘ _if I’d been there_ ’s, wishing more than anything she’d been there to protect him. Wishing she had known to say goodbye.

But mostly she thinks about that last day, his face looking at her with warm eyes and a disbelieving smile. She thinks about the fact that his eyes, those dark eyes that once shined with kindness, will never open again. She thinks about the freckles that would never again darken with the sun. She thinks about the lines at the corner of his grin that would never find a permanent home, would never spread across the rest of his face as badges of honor to show that he had survived this hellhole of a planet. She would never make him smile enough to mark his face forever.

At some point she runs out of tears, out of screams, out of thoughts that shatter her heart into sharp fragments that cut away at the rest of her. And then she does the only thing she knows to do: she stands and picks the decaying leaves from her hair, and she trudges home on legs that feel like lead. She doesn’t know how long she’s been gone, doesn’t care, but by the time she reaches the gates of Arkadia, the sky is as dark as the world seems.

 

When Murphy finds her, she’s at the bar of the mess hall with a glass of moonshine in front of her. She came looking for an escape. Instead she found a slight buzz and memories of a campfire and a Unity Day celebrated with cocky grins and ninety-eight drunken teenagers who were thrilled to still be alive.

_“You look like you could use a drink.”_

_“I could use more than one.”_

_“So have more than one.”_

She obliges the ghost as she shoves it away, taking a large swig of her drink and swallowing hard to bury the lump that seems to have taken up a permanent residence in her throat.

She isn’t surprised when he takes a seat beside her, his eyes fixed on the bar top. From the corner of her eye she sees the three long scratch marks just above his cheekbone, still fresh and colored an angry red. She rubs her nails across the pad of her thumb, remembering how they felt against his skin and idly pondering what it would feel like to dig them even deeper.

“Clarke—"

“I meant what I said,” she says flatly. “It should have been you.”

He’s silent as he grabs a glass of his own and begins to pour.

“I know.”

They sit in silence for a long time, neither acknowledging the other, both lost in their own grief. Though they are separated by inches, they are worlds apart.

“Clarke, I’m so sorry,” he says finally, his voice softer than she’s ever heard it.

She feels his gaze on her, feels the silent plea they hold.

“You’re sorry?” she croaks, downing the last of the glass and savoring the burn that rolls down her throat. She shifts her stare to meet Murphy’s for the first time since he sat down, and she sees the pity there that makes her more nauseous than the alcohol ever could. “Then make it up to me.”

She sees the question on his face and answers before he can ask it.

“Fifty people. Trained with guns. Tell them to meet in the strategy room at noon tomorrow.”

His jaw tightens, and she tries not to think about who it reminds her of. He seems to search her face for something and whatever it is, he must find it, because he gives her a curt nod. And then he is gone, taking his glass with him, and Clarke is alone.

 

She tells herself she feels nothing as she gathers her belongings before leaving for the strategy room, her eyes straining to avoid the couch that lines the wall of her cabin. The one that sits next to a softly lit globe that sits within perfect view from her desk across the room.

She tells herself she feels nothing as she passes his door, just a hundred feet down the hallway from her own. Tries not to remember how many times she has knocked on that door, how many times she was greeted with a smile meant just for her when it opened.

She tells herself she feels nothing as she ignores her mother’s voice calling her name, choosing instead to focus on the sounds of her footsteps that echo off the walls of the corridor. Tells herself she feels nothing as she refuses to meet her eye when she is finally pulled to a stop. Tells herself she feels nothing as she disregards the appeals that spill from her mother’s lips of, _no, Clarke, you can’t do this_ , and, _he wouldn’t want this_.

She feels nothing as she wrenches her arm from the woman’s grasp, leaving her behind with the memories she has silenced.

She is surprised by the number of people that fill the strategy room, each of them parting to give her a clear path to the broad table at the center of the crowded room. She does not tell them why they’re here. They already know. She feels her chest swell as she takes stock of the faces—so many familiar faces—that have come to help, to make sure that the boy who took care of all of them, who helped them survive when no one thought they would, will not go unavenged. She sees Murphy at the corner of the room and gives him a nod. It isn’t a thank you, will never be a thank you, but she knows he understands.

“It’s clear that Ice Nation will always be a threat to Skaikru,” she announces, her words met with a tense silence. She avoids the pained gazes that fall on her. “This is not the first time they have broken our alliance for their own gain, but it will be the last.”

She spreads her hands across the map that rests on the table in front of her, gesturing to an area in the southwest corner.

“Tonight, we’ll send fifty of our people to make camp on the outskirts of Polis. Since King Roan has taken power, the most powerful officials of Azgeda have taken residence here, their numbers close to three thousand. Once their leadership is gone, the smaller villages will disperse, and Ice Nation will crumble.” Her hand slips over one of the figurines dispersed across the map, pressing the pad of her fingertip into the points of its crown. She topples it with a flick of her wrist. “We will be armed with assault rifles, and each member of the team will be equipped to carry three hundred bullets. With those numbers and the element of surprise, this won’t be a difficult mission.”

She stands straight, and though her gaze is leveled at the men and women that gather in the room, she doesn’t see a single face.

“We attack at dawn,” she says clinically, and though the words are threatening, she feels nothing. She will be steel, cold and hardened against the cruelty of this world. She will be stone, chipped at the corners but solid and unshakable in her verdicts. She will command death as the people of Earth have asked of her.

She stares blankly ahead at those around the table.

“There will be no survivors.”


End file.
